1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to capturing images of a graphical user interface (GUI) for an application based upon a pre-defined set of rules (e.g., rules that include Boolean logic) during operation of the application.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Supporting software applications in the field is time-consuming and costly. Many software applications provide inadequate or no logging facilities to address potential issues during use of the applications. Supporting customers that use these applications can be greatly enhanced when graphical image captures (e.g., screen shots) of portions of the applications showing user activity leading up to a bug is available to a support engineer, particularly for applications that are mainly graphical in nature. Manually captured graphical images provided by customers in such a scenario are often unsatisfactory, often due to a vital step not having been captured by the customer to tell the complete story relating to the processing steps in the application leading up to the bug.
Applications exist that allow remote logging into a user's machine to monitor application use (e.g., to capture activities leading up to a bug in an application). However, this is not always feasible, due to a number of issues (e.g., different time zones and security concerns for customers). Applications also exist that capture screen shots during use of applications at fixed time intervals. However, such applications are also problematic since they typically require significant amounts of memory to save the captured information in order to ensure user activity is not missed. Such applications are therefore less suitable to transmission over a network (e.g., via the Internet).